Platinum metal is relatively hard to etch, regardless of whether wet or dry etching is performed. When platinum used as top electrode, as in a platinum/ferroelectric stack structure, the etching of the platinum layer becomes more complicated, as the ferroelectric material is usually easily attacked by any dry or wet etching process which is suitable for etching platinum, resulting in degraded ferroelectric properties, or complete loss of ferroelectric properties, of the ferroelectric layer. Lead Germanium Oxide (Pb5Ge3O11)(PGO) is a ferroelectric material that may be used in single transistor applications. PGO may be wet etched by most etching chemicals, such as HF. The etching process of a Pt/PGO stack, and any post etch cleaning process, becomes more complicated. The etching of a Pt/PGO stack using photoresist as the mask and chlorine and argon as the chemistry is known, however, the resulting etching residue cannot easily be cleaned without damaging the underlying PGO thin film.